Hydrogen is a very common atom occurring in many fuels, often in the presence of carbon in organic compounds. Generally, hydrogen may be used for upgrading petroleum feed stock to more useful products. In addition, hydrogen is used in many chemical reactions, such as reducing or synthesizing compounds. Particularly, hydrogen is used as a primary chemical reactant in the production of useful commercial products, such as cyclohexane, ammonia, and methanol.
Hydrogen itself is quickly becoming a fuel of choice because it reduces green house emissions. Particularly, hydrogen can drive a fuel cell to produce electricity or can be used to produce a substantially clean source of electricity for powering industrial machines, automobiles, and other internal combustion-driven devices. to produce a substantially clean source of electricity for powering industrial machines, automobiles, and other internal combustion-driven devices.
Hydrogen production systems include the recovery of bi-products from various industrial processes and the electrical decomposition of water. Presently the most economical means, however, is to remove the hydrogen from an existing organic compound. Several methods are known to remove or generate hydrogen from carbonatious or hydrocarbon materials. Although many hydrocarbon molecules can be reformed to liberate hydrogen atoms, methane or natural gas is most commonly used.
Use of hydrocarbons as source materials has many inherent advantages. Hydrocarbon fuels are common enough to make production economical. Safe handling methods are well-developed to allow safe and expeditious transport of the hydrocarbons for use in the different reforming and generation techniques.
The main part of today's hydrogen production uses methane as a feedstock. Generally, steam methane reformers are used on the methane in large-scale industrial processes to liberate a stream of hydrogen. Steam methane reformers, however, generally produce less than 90% pure hydrogen molecules in their product streams. Along with the hydrogen streams, side products, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and other bi-products are also produced. The presence of the bi-products pollutes the hydrogen stream making it unusable without further purification.
The process of steam reformation of methane typically consists of reacting methane (from natural gas) with steam to produce CO and H2 (sometimes called synthesis gas). This reaction usually takes place over a nickel catalyst in a metal alloy tube at temperatures in the region of 800 to 1000 C. and at pressures of 30 to 60 atmospheres. The reaction is equilibrium limited and is highly endothermic requiring heat input of 60 Kcal/mol CH including the heat needed to produce steam from liquid water. Heating the outside of the reactor chamber containing the reactants provides the heat for the reaction. The chemical reaction for the reacting of methane is:CH4+H2O=>CO+3 H2  (1)
The CO is to be removed from the product stream for a suitably pure hydrogen stream. To accomplish this, the product gases require further reaction. The appropriate further reaction is shifting the product gases with steam (usually called the water gas reaction) to form additional hydrogen and CO. The CO is then removed from the gas mixture by a pressure swing absorption process to produce a clean stream of hydrogen. The shift reaction produces a second portion of hydrogen by the reaction of the carbon monoxide, from the reforming reaction, with steam.
The shift reaction consumes the carbon monoxide from the reforming reaction to produce carbon dioxide and additional hydrogen gas. Water injection cools the hot gases from the steam reformer by producing steam in a phase-shift, hence the name shift reaction. The steam reacts with the CO forming additional hydrogen and CO2. The reaction energy is substantially balanced so that little additional heat is required to keep the reaction going. The reaction produces a mixture of CO2 and hydrogen with small amounts of CO. The shift reaction is a costly unit of production, requiring significant equipment and operating costs. The chemical equation for the shift reaction is:CO+H2O=>CO2+H2.  (2)
Finally, a pressure swing adsorption process, i.e. bi-product removal in an absorption process, generally follows steam reformation and shift reaction. Pressure swing absorbers (PSAs) can generally reduce the bi-products formed leaving a hydrogen product of about 99% pure hydrogen. To effectively remove the bi-products from the hydrogen stream, PSAs must selectively absorb and hold the carbon dioxide.
Generally, in a PSA process, the hydrogen stream is passed over a filter or bed. The particular PSA composition is selected to optimize carbon dioxide absorption at the temperatures, pressures, and composition of the shift reaction. The inclusion of the PSA or reaction cooperator, for example a calcium constituent, in the PSA bed produces a substantially pure hydrogen product, but it also increases the hydrogen generation from the fuel. According to Le Chatelier's Principle, removing a product of a reaction will shift the equilibrium of the reaction, thereby increasing the production of the other reaction products.
The separation reaction consumes carbon dioxide from the shift reaction to produce the solid calcium carbonate product. Because all of the other reactants are gases, the calcium carbonate, being a solid, is substantially removed from the reaction. The rate of absorption slows as the free calcium volume declines. The chemical equation for the PSA reaction is as follows:CO2(g)+CaO(s)=CaCO3(s)  (3)
Shift reactors have been required to “scrub” the product stream of gas, because the conventional steam reforming reaction only produces about 75% of the potential hydrogen yield in the feedstock and leaves unshifted carbon monoxide in the product gas stream. Unshifted carbon monoxide and product carbon dioxide will generally be detrimental to most chemical reactions using the product hydrogen.
To remove carbon dioxide from the product stream, the use of PSAs is necessary. In conventional steam reformation of methane, a large carbon dioxide load in the product gas stream (nominally 20% by volume), prevents the hydrogen product from being useful in chemical reactions. In addition to being expensive, the purification process using PSAs results in loss of hydrogen product that must be rejected with the non-hydrogen stream that is produced. This hydrogen loss is typically in the range of 10 to 20% of the product hydrogen.
The conventional steam reformation of methane may also produce too many oxides of carbon in the product gas stream. Therefore, there exists an unmet need in the art for an improved method of generating hydrogen from methane wherein the product hydrogen is substantially uncontaminated with oxides of carbon, thereby requiring fewer costly steps to generate an appropriate product gas.